Best Dorothy Parker Quotes

They sicken at the calm that know the storm.

Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you.

All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me.

Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

Razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live.

It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed.

If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you.

This book is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force.

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home a pleasant atmosphere and let the air out of the tires.

Drink, and dance and laugh and lie, love the reeling midnight through, for tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)

Enjoyed it! One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

Where's the man could ease a heart, like a satin gown?

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet one perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get one perfect rose.

I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.

Gratitude -- the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world.

Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are.

I can't talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it's a horror to look back on. I can't imagine how I did it. When I got away from it I couldn't even refer to the place by name. Out there, I called it.

You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch is, and it darts away.

I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.

I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.

He -- Robert Benchley and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.